Rykua

1. Techniques used Uh... as with my other pieces, none really. 2. How long it took to compose the piece About two weeks. 3. Structure of your piece It's just a medley of christmas songs. 4. Obstacles when composing Trying to get the songs transitioning well into each other. The Coventry Carol section was hard in trying to get the low instruments to work together, rather than clash with each other. 5. Summary of overall piece I started this a while ago, finished it a while ago... but forgot about it until now. I'm personally fond of the "Coventry Carol" section, but that's just me. I plan on adding a trombone 1 & 2 part there, when I get a better Finale (I'm still not used to 2007, but I'm working on it). Anyway, here it is. The .MP3 is made with Finale 2007, 'cause I like the sound of it much better. Except in a certain area... where the baritone stutters. I don't know why it does. As usual, I do have a little trouble with trying to make interesting percussion... but I'm trying. MUS file: http://flat-cube.ath.cx/~rykua/Christmas%20Medley.MUS MP3 file: http://flat-cube.ath.cx/~rykua/Christmas_Medley.mp3

Ah, thanks. I just couldn't find the tool for it (but I do know about the flower stuff..... even though I haven't seen that notation in FOREVER, lol). Thanks for the help!

I'm writing a song for piano, but I don't know how to get Finale to use the pedal for the music. Note: I'm using Finale 2004 (I personally cannot stand 2005 or 2007 [i've tried both]). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I know the chord! It's a D minor chord with a major 7th and a sharpened 11th, omitting the 9th! >.> But in all honesty, I think the meaning of the piece is better than the beauty of the piece. I hardly consider Bela Bartok's "Bear Dance" to be beautiful at all, but I still like the piece. Maybe it doesn't have meaning either... it just seems as the title is... a bear dancing... and the music is almost as unbelievable as the title is.

Whoa... I feel totally, completely, and utterly retarded and stuff. I forgot to post an audio. *headdesk* Okay, I'm gonna edit the first post and put in a .WAV file.

I really love it. Man, I wish I could've composed something like this on piano. I got a piano solo in a month and two weeks to compose something to perform ('cause I don't think I can get the whole Revolutionary Etude by Chopin memorized in time), so, kudos to you for making this. It's really, really good. It does remind me a bit of something that Chopin would've done for some really, really weird reason.

Ohhh! Sorry about that. Yeah, the seventh does cause the trumpet player in my band to go "WTF?", 'cause we rarely even get jumps of a sixth, let alone 7ths and octaves in our music. But, thanks for the advice. I'm not exactly sure how to avoid using a seventh next time (or how I could've avoided it this time), but I'm sure I can get to learning ways around it eventually. Perhaps just take the jump down an octave and make it a second?

Oh... I try to avoid those unless I'm using a diminshed chord of some sort (or if I'm using a dominant 7th... 'cause the tritone could be coming from the third of the chord with the 7th [such as E major with a 7th would have a tritone between the G# and the D]). I didn't even realize I used it in the song, lol. I'll need to look over the score again to see where.

*nods* I'm rather new to composition, and I haven't really gotten any lessons in music theory. The farthest I ever got was that the dominant seventh always lead into the tonic. I never really learned (though I heard about) cadences, color, instrumentation, etc. I just try to pick what's pleasing to the ear. Yeah, sorry if it seems a bit amateurish... it was kinda made for my band, which is lacking in instruments. We have 1 trumpet, 1 trombone, and 1 baritone for brasses. For woodwinds, we have 7 clarinets, 5 flutes, 4 altos, 2 tenors, and 1 bari sax... I kinda made this piece for the band, hence why the French horn gets sadly neglected. I didn't mean to double, and in some of my more recent stuff (that I can never seem to complete), I don't do much of it. Usually it's clarinets with flute/piccolo or with the trumpets, alto saxes with french horns, trombones with baritones and tenor sax, and tuba with bari sax. It's a bad habit I'm really trying to break. Aside from those, when you mean the jumps of sevenths and tritones, what do you mean? I understand what you mean about the seventh jump (something that I don't use often), but I don't know what a "tritone" is.

1. Techniques used Uhh, techniques used? I just did what I thought sounded best. Um, harmonic minor, then. Aside from that, I did it all by ear. >.>... I don't have much music theory knowlege. 2. How long it took to compose the piece 2 weeks to get the rough version, and an extra month to smooth it out (like, how the piece has key changes, adding a timpani and chimes part, adding those little trumpet parts around measure 25 or so, and making an ending). I'm not good at endings... so, I don't write one until I start critically looking the piece over... critical stuff, like how spaced out are the instruments for each other... how close I want the tenor sax/baritone to play with the baritone sax/tuba, how much do I want the trombones to mirror the baritone parts before I feel it is getting too hard for them. 3. Structure of your piece Umm... I don't know what this means. 4. Obstacles when composing Uhh, figuring out what to do with a piece. I'll have a nice intro, then an 8 measure theme, repeat the theme with more instruments doing melody and harmony... then not know what to do next. That's why most of my works don't ever get finished. I've also only been composing for less than two years, so... I don't have much experience. 5. Summary of overall piece Probably one of my better works. The school concert band is playing it, and even though we lack the instruments (I mean, we only have one trumpet aside from me, and I'm conducting), it still sounds nice to hear it played live... mistakes and all. >.< I guess I'm supposed to talk about what inspired me here. Umm, well, see, this piece takes the best themes I've made over the years, and put two of 'em in one piece. I originally made the first twenty measures, didn't know what to do, but I knew I wanted a speed change there, so, I looked through my older songs, took a theme I liked, and used it. http://flat-cube.ath.cx/~rykua/Shades_of_Darkness.MUS The .WAV file. (1.26 MB)

To me, I consider a French Horn my bane. I'm a trumpet player, and my ear is finely tuned to playing a Bb instrument. So, when I picked up a french horn, aside from the different mouthpiece, I had to tend to the fact that a C on a french horn sounds different from the C on the trumpet.

Yeah, I've been working on this one song, and I can't seem to find out what to do with it. There's really nothing left for me to do with this song, in my opinion... I might even remove the whole slow section and keep the whole song fast. Best thing to do with this song is to open it up in Finale and to save it as a .wav. I can't seem to upload .wav files on here, and if I saved as .mid, it wouldn't save all 25 channels of music. BTW, it's Finale 2004 (I think). string quartet.sib Any suggestions at all would be appreciated. Untitled_for_now.MUS

Thanks on all that! Actually, my music theory only went up to using I, IV, and V chords for major keys... and i, iv, and v chords for minor keys... most of the other stuff I learned to use, I learned through experience of writing. Anyway, the song I'm talking about, I'm having a major block, and I'm gonna post it under writer's block (I think that's where it goes). And I'm using Finale 2004... so, nope, no GPO (as far as I know).

Is there a way to get Finale to play more than 16 channels? The current song I'm working on uses 25, and the only way to listen to them all is if I save it as a .wav file (which can get tedius after a while). Is there a way to get all 25 to play in Finale without having to save as a music file? If not, don't sweat it. I'll just compose the lines for strings on the flute (violin I and II), piccolo (violin), oboe (viola), Bari Sax (Cello), Tuba (Bass) lines... and then copy+paste. xD! I have my ways. That's how I do it, but I was just wondering if there was a way to do it elsewise. Hope this doesn't sound lazy or selfish... EDIT: Also, in this one passage I have, I let the dominant chord play twice in the bassline (cellos, bass, tuba, bari sax, bass clarinet, etc.). It plays once on beat 1, and again on beat 3. Should I make the first chord the dominant, and second chord a dominant 7th? Should I make the first chord dominant, and the second chord just an inversion? Should I make the first chord suspended and the second chord the dominant chord? Or is there something else. The song is in G Minor, and I'm working with D chord (yesh, I'm a sucker for harmonic minor). Also, in a 8-measure theme, it's the 7th measure. I tend to do most of my musical ideas/themes in 8 measures. Usually it's i, iv, i, V7, i, iv, (some version of v/V), i.

I got finale '04... I wanna get '07 when it gets out. I tried sibelius... 3.1 I believe (I forgot who had it). I didn't like it too much, but then again, it croweded all my staves together. I might try it again another time.